


The Hand of Sephsis

by NapalmChicken



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (Comics)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, F/F, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Lesbian Character, Planet Dagobah (Star Wars), explicit sex doesn't happen until later chapters, lesbian sex eventually, references to thirty year old nintendo games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-09-28 05:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20420516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NapalmChicken/pseuds/NapalmChicken
Summary: The Emperor's Hand goes to Dagobah to investigate strange murmurs in the Force, but she's not the only one who's come there searching for something.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite character from Legends Canon meets my favorite character from Disney Canon, and things start to get sapphic.

Chapter One

It was next to impossible to find an appropriate landing zone among the muck, foliage, and decaying vegetation that covered large portions of the planet, so Mara Jade had no choice but to turn her shuttle’s lasers on one of the few flat patches of land that wasn’t hip-deep in scummy water. Winged creatures and small furry rodents went scurrying as the lasers ripped through the plant matter, creating a greenish smoke that Mara was sure would smell distinctly unpleasant once she got out of the ship. Actually, she was sure that the planet would smell unpleasant even without the smoke. Dagobah, she assumed, was not the kind of planet that naturally exuded a soapy-fresh scent.

Not that Mara was entirely sure why she was here. It was unlike the Emperor to be so vague when he sent her on an assignment. Mara was a weapon, a great and highly specialized one, but she wasn’t the highly destructive and unfocused kind. She worked best when she was pointed directly at a target, a precision laser to excise cancerous element’s within Palpatine’s empire. A mission with the vague parameters of “go to this world and see what there is to see” seemed a waste of her unique talents as the Emperor’s Hand.

Palpatine hadn’t been completely without details, though. He’d said that he’d heard rumors of something of interest on Dagobah, although he gave no specifics on what that something might be, and that Mara was supposed to search the planet for a week before coming back with any noteworthy items or information she could find. Most importantly, Palpatine had said, was that the planet show it was devoid of intelligent life. If she came across anyone living there, anyone at all, Mara was to slay them without question.

As the smoke cleared, Mara lowered her Imperial Lambda-class shuttle to the still-smoldering ground and ran more sensor readings, even if that did seem pointless. _Of course_ it was going to pick up life readings. The entire planet seemed to be a boiling biological soup. The problem was trying to differentiate the non-sentients from any possible sentients. She didn’t even know if she was supposed to be looking for a human or something else. The planet didn’t have any known settlements, and her scans on the way in didn’t show any hints of a large settlement that might be in hiding. If anyone or anything interesting was living on this planet, it had to be an incredibly small group or even an individual, and they were adept at blending in with the swampy world around them.

There _were_ signs of certain large fauna hiding deep within that mess of life, though. Mara would have to be careful.

Before exiting the shuttle, Mara shouldered on a survival pack and clipped her lightsaber to her belt along with a Blastech pistol. For the first day she didn’t intend to travel too far from the shuttle. She was simply going to get a look around and a feel for the environment before she chose to proceed. After that she might take the shuttle to some other location on the planet, or if she found signs of whatever she was looking for she might choose to trek deeper into the swamp and make camp. There was always the possibility, though, that she would run into trouble right away, and for that she needed to be battle and survival ready. She hadn’t come this far and been chosen as the Emperor’s Hand by being careless.

While Mara had not used any specific reasoning when choosing her landing site, she had done her best to let the Force guide her. While Palpatine had given her training in the Force, she got the distinct impression that he was holding back in all the things he could teach her. On the few occasions she had dared broach the subject with him, he’d said that she would learn everything she needed to be his Hand. She didn’t say she knew there was a big difference between knowing what he needed her to know and knowing everything she _could_ know. Compared to the things she’d seen Palpatine do up close and Darth Vader do from a distance (considering her existence was supposed to be a secret from him and the rest of the Empire), she knew that the things she could do with the Force were little more than parlor tricks. But the things she _could_ accomplish with the Force, she trusted. So if the Force had led her to choose this general area of the planet as her first landing zone, then she wouldn’t question it.

And almost immediately after exiting the shuttle, Mara knew that she had done right to let the Force guide her, because she immediately felt the sensation of being watched. Her handle on the Force wasn’t quite strong enough that she could know if that was how she was aware that something was out there keeping an eye on her, or if she just knew this from the delicate hunter’s instincts she had built up from her time as an assassin. Either way, she didn’t doubt that the feeling was true. She was not alone here on Dagobah.

The question of whether the presence was friend or foe never felt relevant.

Whatever or whoever was here, it was difficult to pinpoint in a place as full of living things as this. No Force tricks were going to help her here. Whatever quarry or treasure there was to be found, she would discover it with good old-fashioned tracking skills.

The first several hours were just about getting her bearings and becoming familiar with the land. She’d gone on missions through all sorts of environments in the past, so the scummy water and muddy game trails she forced her way through were nothing new. Normally she would wear a tunic with bare arms, especially in some place as muggy as this, but she quickly had to pull a second layer of clothing from her pack to protect against the numerous aggressive biting insects. She kept a hood up with a mesh scarf over her face, but even these precautions didn’t keep red welts from appearing on any slightly exposed skin where tiny creatures nipped at her. The additional layers of clothing got to be sweltering quickly, and her clothes became drenched not just with sweat but with the moisture that seemed to pervade everything on this planet.

Yet Mara didn’t let any of it affect her. She’d been in other environments just as bad, although not many that were worse, and she’d learned to use her limited connection with the Force to pull herself beyond such irritations as long as she was on the hunt for prey. And she _definitely_ felt that there was prey of some sort nearby, although the exact nature of it eluded her. The sense that she was being watched never left her, and once or twice she’d needed to pause when she’d heard something in the underbrush that hadn’t quite seemed like the natural sounds and passing of animals. If anything, the sense was getting stronger.

With no outward warning, Mara began to run, nimbly moving through the muck in an attempt to put some distance between herself and whatever might be stalking her. This time she distinctly heard a rustle, like something had been stealthy up until the moment it was startled by her sudden move, and then it gave chase. Mara had initially thought to get ahead of it a ways and then wait in ambush, but it became apparent quickly that she wasn’t going to gain a lot of distance on it. She didn’t want to waste any precious time looking over her shoulder, especially when the slightest wrong step could lead her to twisting an ankle on a tree root or stepping into a hidden patch of sucking mud, but she could tell from the sounds of her pursuer barreling through the swamp and the tree branches cracking in its path that it was large, probably much taller than her.

_This is unacceptable_, Mara thought. _I need to change this situation to my advantage._

With a jump that was part from the Force and part from sheer physical ability, Mara grabbed a tree branch overhead. It was just long and sturdy enough to support her weight as she spun up and held on for a moment with her legs sticking straight up in the air. As she held that position, the creature that had been racing after her came bursting through a tangle of vines. From her upside-down position she only had time to register it as some large simian-like creature with long limbs, black matted fur, and a nasty scar crossing its face. It saw her up above and let out a loud growl, but its momentum kept carrying it forward when it tried to stop, lining it up directly under Mara’s branch. She came down on the other side, completing the spin and connecting with the back of its head. Kicking it was like running feet first into a ferrocrete wall, and she knew immediately that she was definitely going to be moving with a limp for the rest of the day. If the creature hadn’t already been off-balance her attack might not have done much, but as it tried to reach around behind to grab her it felt over onto its knees in a puddle of fetid water. Taking advantage of the moment, Mara unclipped her lightsaber, ignited it, and prepared to make a killing blow.

“Wait! Stop! There doesn’t need to be any killing! Not yet, at least.”

The voice came from some distance behind Mara, but she didn’t dare yet turn around to get a look at the speaker. She could tell from the way the thing in front of her bellowed and thrashed that it was angry she had gotten the drop on it, but now that she had a moment to assess the situation she could see that this was not some native swamp monster. The thing wore bandoliers connected to two spiked shoulder pauldrons, and in its hand it carried an enormous black bowcaster. Even before it turned around and Mara got a better view of its facial features, it was the weapon that gave away the species of its owner. Bowcasters were almost exclusively wielded by Wookiees.

The Wookiee stood up and looked for a moment like it was going to lunge at Mara, then got a better look at her glowing lightsaber and thought better of it. With the Wookiee seemingly at bay for the moment, Mara finally looked over her shoulder at the person who had called out to her.

The woman approaching her was short in stature, but she walked through the treacherous terrain like someone who was used to being in hostile environments where she had no right to be. She wore a helmet with goggles on top, a leather jacket, and carried a blaster at her hip. She appeared to be a human, and she had epicanthic folds at the edges of her eyes. Her smile was disarming and, Mara couldn’t help but notice against her better judgement, she was really quite beautiful, maybe even sexy.

_Where the hell did that thought come from?_ Mara wondered. Normally she considered herself above such bodily needs, but for once she had to admit that the sight of the woman gave Mara some fluttery feelings deep between her legs.

The woman stopped at the sight of Mara’s lightsaber, and she realized that merely having the lightsaber out gave her away as something that wasn’t normally seen these days. She remembered the Emperor’s demand that she kill anyone she found living on the planet, then looked the woman over again.

_Yes, I’ll kill her,_ Mara thought. _Later. Definitely later._

“Who are you two?” Mara demanded.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” the woman said.

Mara shook her head. “I think I’m the one in the better position to be asking questions right now.”

The woman shrugged. “Okay. Fair enough. The large hairy one in the mud that you just embarrassed – and I would be worried about that, if I were you – is my sometimes companion Black Krrsantan.”

“And you?” Mara asked.

The woman dialed up her smile to something that even Mara found truly disarming. “Me? My name is Chelli. But you can call me Doctor Aphra.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara and Aphra play a mental cat-and-mouse game for information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story WILL be explicit eventually, so you've been warned, but there's going to be a lot of build up first.

Chapter Two

Although there were clear signs that Aphra and Krrsantan distrusted her just as much as she distrusted them, they led her back to their ship so they could all discuss why they were here in ways less likely to end in bloodshed. As Mara had already revealed too much in showing her lightsaber, she kept quiet and did her best to act intimidated, although she didn’t think they were buying it. Truthfully, though, while they didn’t frighten her in the slightest, she grew more wary the longer she spent near them. Palpatine had very clearly told her to kill anyone living here, put it didn’t seem like either of these two made this dreary place their home. It seemed more likely to her that, whatever it was her master had sensed here, they were here for the same reason. For the moment it seemed better to be allies with them and pick their brains rather than kill them outright.

_Also_, Mara thought as she watched Aphra’s butt in front of her as she led the way, _it would be a shame to kill someone as gorgeous as her if it wasn’t necessary._

She supposed she could reach out to the Emperor and ask for more detailed instructions in this situation, but that was a trick Mara was still in the early stages of learning to trust. Palpatine had found her and taken her to Coruscant at an early age, but that didn’t mean she had learned all her skills at once. She was only just out of her teens now, and she assumed that as she got further into her twenties she would become more proficient, maybe even in some of those things in which the Emperor was holding her back on.

Aphra and Krrsantan had apparently used a less slash-and-burn approach to their landing than she had, taking more of an effort in finding some place their ship could set down without disturbing the environment. Milling about the base of the ship’s gangway were two droids, one an astromech and one a protocol droid, both of them with completely black finishes. The astromech had a small laser cutter poking out from one of its sockets, which it appeared to be using to bullseye small creatures in the underbrush while the protocol droid cheered it on.

“Oh very good, Beetee! I do believe the blood spatter on that one made quite the lovely pattern. Tell me, did you do that on purpose or is it just coincidence that the guts formed the shape of a Bith writhing in excruciating agony?”

“Uh, Trip? Beetee? Maybe you should put aside what you’re doing for a minute,” Aphra said. “We’ve got company.”

“Oh really, Master Aphra,” the protocol droid said. “I don’t see why the presence of another person means we should stop torturing other life forms. It’s never stopped us any other time.”

Aphra blushed and gestured at the two droids. “Uh, this is Triple-Zero and BT-1. Guys, this is… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“That’s because I didn’t give it,” Mara said.

“And do you intend to?” Aphra asked. Mara noticed the way her hand crept closer to the blaster in her holster, as well as the way Black Krrsantan tensed like he was ready to pull out his bowcaster again. Even the two droids managed to affect an air like they were about to do violence, and despite their appearance Mara suspected they were fully capable of it. Mara believed she could take all four of them if she had to, but at the moment that was neither wise nor necessary.

“Arica Lorn,” Mara said. She pulled the alias from a mental list of those she kept on hand, although she didn’t have the idents for that particular name at the moment. Something told her, though, that this group wasn’t exactly the kind to check such. They probably already assumed it was fake, just like Mara assumed that “Aphra” and “Krrsantan” were also assumed names, since surely they wouldn’t be reckless enough to give their real ones.

“Well, ‘Arica,’ let’s cut the crap,” Aphra said. “We’re going to ask you what you’re doing here, and you’re going to lie to us. Then you’re going to do the same and we’re going to lie to you. We’re all going to pretend we have no idea what the other is doing, we’ll get in each other’s way, and in the end one or more people are going to end up dead with blaster holes in their chests. Sound about right to you?”

Mara did have to admit that it did mostly sound like how these things went, but she was amused that Aphra automatically assumed they were here for the same reason. It might even be true, but Mara wasn’t going to bank on that.

“Yes, that sounds about right.”

“So let’s just skip past all that and both openly admit that we’re all here looking for the Hand of Sephsis.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Mara said. In fact, she truly couldn’t. For all she knew, the Hand was exactly what Palpatine had sensed here.

“Oh yes, of course. I didn’t think that you would. But do keep in mind that if you can’t help with anything, that would put all of us in a bind.”

Mara didn’t need to see their hands twitching near their weapons to understand the implied threat. “Sure, but I never said I couldn’t help. For all you know, I might have valuable information that you don’t. And you may have info that I don’t. So now the question is, what can _you_ do for _me_?”

And just like them, she let her hands hover near her blaster and her lightsaber. Since Mara was fairly certain she could take all of them out, it wasn’t exactly a bluff. But straight-up murdering them wouldn’t tell her any of the information they might have.

The look on Aphra’s face suggested that she was calculating the same thing. Of course, Mara didn’t actually _have_ any information to exchange with her, so she wasn’t sure what she would do if Aphra insisted Mara go first. Thankfully, however, Aphra didn’t press yet.

“An exchange of information then,” Aphra said. “We tell you what little we know, then you tell us everything you know, and then maybe we can all come to some agreement that doesn’t end in smoking holes and severed body parts.”

By way of agreement, Mara relaxed her hand near the blaster, letting the hand near the lightsaber convey the message that she was still ready for a fight if the situation required it.

“Tell me, Arica, do you actually know anything about Sephsis themself?”

Mara did some quick mental calculus before deciding that, in this particular situation, a little bit of the truth would be best. “Very little.”

“Sephsis was a Jedi Master who lived at roughly the same time as Empress Teta and the Unification Wars.” Aphra paused to look at Mara like she wanted to see if she understood any of that. Although Mara didn’t know specifics, her training under Palpatine had included just enough history to know that Empress Teta had reigned over five thousand years ago, in a time when a significant portion of what was now known space had been completely unexplored. Mara nodded, and Aphra continued.

“The Jedi were still a pretty monastic order at that time, but not to the same level that they became later. They didn’t have the same ban on emotional attachments, and their views on sexuality were a bit more open. Jedi were allowed to have mates or lovers, and they didn’t have a problem with using the Force to be… experimental. Sephsis wasn’t known for anything typically associated with the Jedi. They weren’t particularly skilled with a lightsaber and there was no evidence that they were a particularly good mediator. But they were said to have a certain level of prowess in other areas, if you know what I mean.”

Mara’s curiosity got the better of her. “How would you know that? Where are you getting that information from?”

“Uh, it’s just something I’ve picked up over the years.”

Mara tried not to let her skepticism show on her face. It wasn’t just that she knew an unusual amount about this Sephsis’s sex life. Ever since the Emperor had come to power he’d severely restricted any information about the Jedi, even those Jedi that had come thousands of years before his reign. If Aphra had access to that information, it could only be from one of two ways: either she was one of the rare few who had access to forbidden records, or she had simply stolen the information.

Either way, though, Mara didn’t press her. Only someone with high Imperial access would have realized just how forbidden Aphra’s knowledge was. If she called Aphra out on it, then she’d be giving away a little bit of her own secret identity.

“The other thing Sephsis was particularly good at, though, was imbuing certain objects with raw Force energy. It wasn’t exactly a forbidden talent, but a lot of Sephsis’s contemporaries looked down on them, saying they strayed dangerously close to the Dark Side. Almost all the artifacts that Sephsis created are believed to be lost.”

“Except the Hand?” Mara asked.

Aphra nodded. “Except the Hand.”

Mara thought about this. This certainly did seem like the reason Mara was sent here. Although her skills were more in espionage and assassination, this wouldn’t be the first rare artifact that Palpatine had dispatched her to recover. It did seem a bit odd, though, that he wouldn’t be able to give her more details about what this Hand was and what it was supposed to do. There had to be more going on here than she realized. Yet she couldn’t just grill Aphra for more information. Her biggest advantage at the moment was that Aphra and her crew were unaware of how much she was in the dark. Asking too many questions would give that away.

A plan came to Mara’s mind. It was risky, and it would require quite the bluff, but she was certain she could make it work.

And if she couldn’t, well, that would just mean that her lightsaber arm would be getting a workout on this mission.

“Some of that matches what I know. But if that’s all _you_ know, then you’re not much use to me.” She started to turn around and walk away, deliberately showing them her back and putting herself in a position of vulnerability. She was never _truly_ vulnerable, but Aphra and her crew didn’t need to know that. They needed to think she was careless and thoughtless, not that she already had an idea about how to kill all of them in under thirty seconds if needed.

“Wait,” Aphra called to her. “That’s not all we know. We know a lot more, but you can’t expect us to tell you anything else if you’re not willing to give anything in return.” Mara turned around like she was suddenly interested in any proposal Aphra might give.

_Like what she might be willing to do with me in bed, _Mara thought, then chided herself for being distracted.

“So the question is, do you have any relevant information to trade?” Aphra asked.

Mara gave the best shit-eating grin she could fake. “Relevant? That depends. Do you consider the Hand of Sephsis’s exact location to be relevant?”

Without words, Aphra’s greedy expression told her that she found that very relevant indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the search for the Hand of Sephsis begins, Mara and Aphra warily get to know each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of the creatures Aphra mentions are original creations; they're all deep cut references (some of them VERY deep cut).

Chapter 3

The key to Mara’s bluff was that she had to say as little as she possibly could while still appearing completely confident that she really knew where the Hand was. Luckily she had one advantage that none of her companions appeared to. Mara had the Force, and she was sure than an ancient artifact imbued with pure Force energy would normally be something she could track. The problem was that Dagobah was so full of life that small fluctuations in the Force were everywhere. While she was confident she could do this, she also knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

Another problem was that her new companions remained justifiably wary. Aphra at least tried to hide her skepticism, but Triple Zero was very open about the fact that he didn’t believe her.

“Master Aphra, I calculate that the chances that this woman is telling the truth are 370,582 to one. I also calculate the chances of her giving us the truth would go up exponentially if you allow me to shove gimer stick wedges under her fingernails in the slowest and most painful way possible.”

Mara pretended not to hear them as Aphra hurried to shush him up. If anything, the fact that they didn’t believe her made her respect them all a little more.

The one thing Mara could tell them in all honesty was that the journey to the Hand would likely be very long and difficult, so the group took some time to prepare for a long hike through a hostile environment. Truth be told, if the Hand of Sephsis really was here somewhere, there was no guarantee that it would anywhere close to their current site. It could very well be on the other side of the planet. But Mara had a feeling it wasn’t. Even with all the life throwing off her sense of the Force, there was still a clear feeling that the Force had a stronger presence in this general area than it did elsewhere on the planet.

And also, that sensation she’d felt earlier that she was being watched hadn’t gone away. Even knowing now that the initial feeling had probably been Aphra and Krrsantan, she still couldn’t shake the impression that there was someone or something else on Dagobah with them, something more powerful than any animal, and maybe even more than an ancient Jedi artifact.

As Mara thought this, she almost believed she could hear some king of cackling laugh far in the distance, but it was probably her imagination.

Once Aphra and her crew were all kitted out for the journey, they turned back to Mara. “Okay, Arica. Time to prove you’re not full of gundark shit. Lead the way, and don’t pull anything funny.”

“And what would happen if I did try?” Mara asked.

“That is the point where Beetee and I would get to have our way with you,” Triple Zero said. Normally Mara would interpret that as a threat of rape, which would result in immediate repercussions. But since the droids lacked that sort of anatomy, Mara could only assume that their ideas were different but no less sinister.

“That’s an interesting pair of droids you have there,” Mara said to Aphra in the most conversational way she could as they started off down a murky, root-covered game trail. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything else like them.”

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. With her security access, Mara had seen plans for droids similar to them. The 0-0-0 protocol droid matrix had been mentioned in hushed tones in a few Clone Wars-era reports, while the BT droid series had been a failed experiment of the Tarkin Initiative. The fact that they were here implied that either Aphra was Imperial or had connections high up in Imperial leadership. It was another reason not to kill them all right off the bat, but ironically was an even deeper reason not to trust them. Just because they might be on the same side didn’t imply they had the same agenda.

“Yes, well, trust me, we should be very grateful that there are so few of them,” Aphra said. In an obvious attempt to change the conversation, she pulled out a data pad with various life readings on it. “Tell me, Arica, just how familiar are you with the planet Dagobah?”

Mara sensed a conversation coming with many opportunities for Aphra to trap her in a lie. She started off with as non-committal of an answer as she could.

“I can tell you that the entire planet is a slimy mudhole.” She stopped and looked around. “Did you just hear that?”

“No,” Aphra said. “Hear what?”

“It sounded almost like something made a disapproving noise.”

“With all the deadly flora and fauna on this planet, you should be grateful that a vaguely disapproving noise is all you heard. It’s when the noises become growls and roars that you should start worrying.”

“Exactly what kind of creatures are we talking about here?” Mara asked.

Aphra pointed at the datapad. “We only have a partial record of information to work with, as this planet hasn’t exactly been thoroughly scouted. There was an official Republic survey about thirty-seven years ago, and there was also a team of Alderaanian explorers that investigated the place soon after. One group was reportedly eaten by something, and the other was forced to resort to cannibalism.”

“Oh, but do be assured that we will not do that to you, Miss Arica,” Trip said from ahead of them. They were leading the way down the path, with Beetee using hidden rockets to get over the terrain and a viciously over-powered flamethrower to clear anything it couldn’t fly over. “We do not eat, so any attempt to kill you by myself or Beetee will be for fun, not sustenance.”

Mara ignored him. “So there must be a number of things on this planet that are very large then.”

“Probably. The survey information lists a lot of names but not many details. And a lot of the names don’t give much in the way of clues as to what they might be: swamp slugs, vine snakes, dragon snakes and bogwings all seem somewhat self-explanatory, but then we have sleen, nudj, igua-jaws, stargerms, dagles, dagopillars, habogads, and, I’m not joking here, something that’s actually called a stinging waspo.”

“Wait, habogad?” Mara asked. “Isn’t that just Dagobah spelled backwards?”

“Yep. Looks like it is.”

“Sounds like someone was just in a crunch time to assign names. What does a habogad even look like?”

“The only holo of it in the data files is pretty blurry. It looks like it might be some combination of a plant and a swamp bug.”

They were quiet then for a time, keeping most of their concentration on making their way through the unfriendly terrain. Many times there was no clear path ahead and they had to tromp through thigh-high patches of stagnant bog water, although they were all careful not to stay in those places too long. There was no telling what could be lurking just below the murky surface.

Although it might have appeared that Mara was directing them at random, she was actually reaching out with the Force at all times, figuratively poking it to see if it poked back. And there was definitely something there, maybe even several somethings, but Mara couldn’t identify them. There was a very strong energy coming from the way in which she was leading them, although it seemed to be cloaked in something dark and foreboding. There was another presence she thought she could feel every so often, though, a presence that felt both curious and mischievous, but every time Mara thought for sure that she had a lock on it, suddenly the presence would cut off. Was it something sentient, or was it something related to this mysterious Hand of Sephsis? That might be a question Mara could answer if only she had a better idea of what the Hand was and what it could do.

She didn’t dare ask Aphra outright, though, which is why she was relieved when, after about an hour of travel, Aphra broached the subject for her.

“This place doesn’t look like you can survive here if you don’t trust your partners,” Aphra said. “So maybe we should fess up and give each other a little more information.”

“And is that what we are now?” Mara asked. “Partners?”

“I mean, for now. If you want to be something _other _than partners, we could always do that part later.” Aphra emphasized her statement with a little eyebrow waggle, as if Mara might have otherwise missed the innuendo.

_Oh, I definitely want to be something other than partners with you,_ Mara thought, then added, _No, libido, stop that. I have a job to do._

“If you’re going to establish trust, maybe you should try giving me information I’ve already figured out for myself,” Mara said. It meant she would give up a little of her leverage, but if she could get Aphra to let some of her guard down first, she would gain that leverage right back.

Aphra thought for a second, then stopped on their path as her three companions continued around a large, murky pond covered in mist. “Fine. I’m sure you’ve already figured out we have Imperial ties, and since you’re working for the Empire, that obviously means we must be on the same side.”

While Mara wasn’t happy that Aphra had already figured out she was Imperial, she couldn’t help but be smug about what the woman had just accidentally given away in the way she’d phrased that. Aphra said she had Imperial ties. That would certainly explain the droids. But Imperial _ties_ weren’t the same as working for the Empire. Aphra was trying to get her guard down by letting Mara assume things that might not be true.

It wasn’t until a few seconds later, though, that Aphra truly caught her off balance. “Of course, I don’t expect you to trust me completely, no matter what,” Aphra said. “I would expect nothing less from the Emperor’s Hand herself.”

There were a number of ways that Mara could have reacted. She could have denied it. She could have activated her lightsaber and cut down this woman who knew things she shouldn’t. But before Mara could decide on the proper course of action, the pond erupted into chaos.


End file.
